O. Henry

A Life in Stories

William Sydney Porter was born in Greensboro, North Carolina on September 11, 1862. In due course, he became a licensed pharmacist. In his colorful lifetime, he would also become a bank teller, a bookkeeper, a clerk, and illustrator, a draftsman in the General Land Office...a newspaperman, an editor, reporter, columnist, and cartoonist. "Will, " as his family and neighbors called him, also learned to break a stubborn bronco, lasso cattle, shear sheep, and he could rope, ride and shoot a gun. Will porter was also a writer. He wrote stories mostly, short stories, often about ordinary people. He used many names when he wrote. Sometimes he would be S.H. Peters or James L. Bliss. Or T.B. Dowd, Mr. Barkas, or John Arbuthnott. All in all, he wrote hundreds of stories. And he also wrote under another favorite name...O.Henry.